Category Archives: Corazón

This past weekend Carlos and I had the unhappy chore of shopping for new cellphone service since my contract with Cricket Wireless is coming to an end this month. Because of the way our family’s service was set up, we weren’t able to keep our phone numbers, making this the third cellphone number change for us in three years.

We spent all weekend setting up the new phones and texting all our contacts to apologetically let them know we have new numbers yet again. Most people dutifully changed our numbers in their contacts and replied with simple responses like “Ok! Got it!”

However, the response Carlos received from his Mexican friend Rigo had us both laughing.

Today I bring back this series with my family’s most recent “bilingual moments” and funny conversations. (Be sure to share your recent funny conversations in comments!)

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Tracy: Whatcha doing cutie pants?Carlos: Not much—Tracy: I was talking to Chico.

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Carlos: Look, the guy at the Latino market gave me the merchant copy. [Shows me a receipt]Tracy: Why is this the American copy? Did you want it in Spanish?Carlos: What?Tracy: Why are you calling this an American copy?Carlos: No, I said MERCHANT copy.Tracy: Oh, it sounded like you said ‘MURICAN copy.

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“Mommy help! Get him off me! He’s hurting me with jalapeño breath!”

– My older son being pinned down by my younger son who was breathing into his face after eating pickled jalapeños

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Tracy: Hey, this book says Mexican women don’t shave their legs. I’m moving to Mexico.Carlos: Um, that sounds… anticuado. How old is that book?Tracy: Published…(turns pages)… 1972. Oh.

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Carlos: I’m going to cut the grass.Tracy: It’s Sunday. That’s bad karma.Carlos: But it needs to be done.Tracy: Ay ve vos.Carlos: Well I can’t now cause you jinxed me.

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Tracy: Can you grab me a wad of paper towels?Carlos: Huh?Tracy: Can you grab me a wad of paper towels?Carlos: A watt?Tracy: A wad!Carlos: What is that?Tracy:Tanate! Can you grab me a tanate of paper towels?Carlos: Why didn’t you just say that to begin with?

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13 year old: Hey Daddy, have you heard of that singer Macklemore?Carlos: Yeah, he’s from Soyapango.13 year old: You say everyone is from Soyapango!

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Carlos: Ooo, you got Abuelita chocolate!Tracy: Yup.13 year old son: Who’s the old lady on the package?Tracy: Abuelita, of course.13 year old: Oh.Tracy: Hey Carlos, isn’t that the same lady in the Pedro Infante movies?Carlos: Yup, that’s Nana Tomasita.13 year old: Let me guess, she’s from Soyapango.Carlos: Nope. She’s from Chalate.

Parenting is one of the biggest challenges there is, and bilingual parenting can be twice as hard. Here are 10 animated gifs only parents raising bilingual kids will understand. Laugh, cry, be entertained – I know you feel me.

#1. When your bilingual child is just a baby everything is new and awesome. Mixing the languages together is totally normal and totally adorable. So your reaction when your baby speaks Spanglish is something like:

#2. Fast forward 10 years though and your child is still not fluent. Your child’s Spanglish at this stage of the game may have become somewhat less enchanting.

#3. But then one day your child says their first curse word in Spanish, (and you know they learned it from you.)

Hey, at least they’re speaking Spanish.

#4. And then comes that magical age when they get to pick a foreign language at school. The child you’re raising English/Spanish bilingual tells you they want to take… French.

#5. Okay, okay. We must embrace all language learning. It’s fine, they can learn French. Maybe they’ll be trilingual you say to yourself. But then they ask for help with their French homework and you discover your mouth will only pronounce French words following Spanish-language rules so you’re completely unhelpful.

#6. At some point you realize hey, we’re not speaking enough Spanish at home, so you try the famous “I won’t acknowledge you unless you speak Spanish” tactic.

This year marks our 4th year of celebrating Día de los Muertos by creating an altar to remember passed loved ones. In 2010 when I first set up an altar and Carlos asked me to take it down because it made him sad, I completely understood and dismantled it. Día de los Muertos is called Día de los Difuntos in El Salvador and most people don’t see it as a day of celebration. In El Salvador it’s more a day of mourning – so Carlos wasn’t into it.

I thought that would be our first and last altar but the next year my boys remembered the tradition and asked if we were going to build an altar. When I explained that it had made Daddy sad to see his father on the altar they asked if we could make one for a beloved dog who had passed – and so we celebrated the life of Ginger the dog that year.

Last year was a turning point because not only did Carlos say he felt comfortable with me creating an altar for his passed loved ones, I also felt comfortable enough to include passed loved ones from my side of the family.

As I set up this year’s ofrenda I realized how therapeutic Día de los Muertos is for healing. It feels good to be able to look at a photo of my grandfather or Carlos’s abuelos and smile, remembering them.

While watching “Domingo Para Todos” Carlos started to laugh when people in the audience were whistling. The whistle was very distinctive and had three beats – two short beats, followed by one a little bit longer. Like, “Sss-Sss Srrr!”

“What does that whistle mean?” I asked.

Carlos explained to me that the whistle is called “la vieja” [the old lady] and in El Salvador it’s the same as saying “tu madre” [your mother/yo mama]… In other words, it’s an insult. The whistle is very useful in soccer stadiums to insult the referee when he makes a bad call, or if you need to insult someone from a distance. If you’re driving in a car and want to make use of the whistle when angry with another driver, you can even imitate the sound with your car horn.

Seems like a useful skill. Maybe I should start using the whistle with non-Salvadorans who make me angry. Whistling “la vieja” offers me the opportunity to express what I’m thinking and the other person will only think that I’m crazy. No harm done!